STANDISH AND NOBLE 
33 
perfection, if at all. At Highclere, the seat of the Earl of 
Carnarvon, are large masses of Altaclarense and Russel- 
lianum, lo to 12 feet in height, which for the last two 
seasons were well covered with flower-buds. Had the 
weather been favourable they would have formed magnifi- 
cent objects ; but unfortunately this was not the case, and 
the whole were completely destroyed by frosts. 
Knowing that the many disappointments of this char- 
acter were exercising a retrograde movement in the taste 
for hybrid Rhododendrons as they were then constituted, 
about twelve years ago we commenced a series of ^ cross- 
ings,' with the view of remedying the great defects so 
apparent in the earliness of blooming and susceptibility 
to frost. In this we have been perfectly successful. By 
crossing the American species again with the first hybrids, 
such as Altaclarense, &c., we have still retained the rich tints 
of the Indian kinds, with all the hardiness of the American ; 
and what is of equal import, the results of such crossings 
are the production of varieties which have a tendency 
to bloom in a very young and dwarf state, and sufficiently 
late in the season to escape spring frosts, producing their 
flowers from the middle of May till the latter part of June. 
As so little is known in connection with the nature and 
effect of hybridising amongst plants, we shall take this 
opportunity of endeavouring to describe, with reference to 
the Rhododendron, some of the peculiarities which a very 
extended practice has presented to us. We find that, 
analogous to what is observed in the animal kingdom, the 
wider the cross the more healthy the progeny, and that 
breeding ^ in and in ' produces weak and deteriorated 
constitutions. We have a remarkable instance of this in 
a batch of hybrids raised from R. caucasicum album (that 
being a hybrid), fertilised by its own pollen. The plants 
C 
